Model comparison
Mistral Large 3 vs Mistral Small 3
Mistral Large 3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.1 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 6.5× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Mistral Large 3's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 17 shared benchmarks.
Mistral AISummary
- They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Mistral Large 3 scores higher in 6 categories and Mistral Small 3 in 2 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Mistral Large 3 leads 60.0 to 32.2.
- Mistral Small 3 is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.08 per million input/output tokens, against $0.25 / $0.75 for Mistral Large 3.
- Mistral Large 3 accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 33K.
Side by side
| Mistral Large 3 | Mistral Small 3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 39.1 | 31.2 |
| Released | 2025-12-02 | 2025-01-30 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 262K | 33K |
| Max output | 8K | 16K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.25 | $0.05 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.75 | $0.08 |
| Results tracked | 24 | 24 |
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Category by category
Coding Mistral Small 3 leads
Mistral Large 3: 34.4 (#237), Mistral Small 3: 36.5 (#207)
| Benchmark | Mistral Large 3 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1448 | 1246 |
| LMArena WebDev | 1230 | — |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | — | 45.3% |
| BigCodeBench Complete | — | 50.4% |
Reasoning Mistral Small 3 leads
Mistral Large 3: 15.2 (#319), Mistral Small 3: 18.9 (#273)
| Benchmark | Mistral Large 3 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1429 | 1233 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 50.9% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 7.5% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 0% |
| Thematic Generalization | 23% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 127.07 |
Math Mistral Large 3 leads
Mistral Large 3: 38.7 (#129), Mistral Small 3: 16.3 (#295)
| Benchmark | Mistral Large 3 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1414 | 1240 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 6.7% |
Knowledge Mistral Large 3 leads
Mistral Large 3: 36.0 (#177), Mistral Small 3: 25.1 (#263)
| Benchmark | Mistral Large 3 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1421 | 1202 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 47.3% |
| Confabulations | — | 25.2% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 14.5% | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
Mistral Large 3: 38.2 (#66), Mistral Small 3: —
| Benchmark | Mistral Large 3 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1221 | — |
Multilingual Mistral Large 3 leads
Mistral Large 3: 52.5 (#84), Mistral Small 3: 37.3 (#236)
| Benchmark | Mistral Large 3 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1413 | 1198 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1447 | 1204 |
| LMArena French | 1455 | 1203 |
| LMArena German | 1437 | 1211 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1394 | 1111 |
| LMArena Korean | 1384 | 1188 |
| LMArena Russian | 1411 | 1216 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1440 | — |
Instruction Following Mistral Large 3 leads
Mistral Large 3: 74.0 (#108), Mistral Small 3: 63.7 (#229)
| Benchmark | Mistral Large 3 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1403 | 1214 |
Long Context Mistral Large 3 leads
Mistral Large 3: 43.1 (#105), Mistral Small 3: 37.8 (#211)
| Benchmark | Mistral Large 3 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1413 | 1246 |
Writing & Preference Mistral Large 3 leads
Mistral Large 3: 60.0 (#101), Mistral Small 3: 32.2 (#280)
| Benchmark | Mistral Large 3 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1428 | 1234 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1386 | 1195 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1412 | 707 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1429 | 1217 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Mistral Large 3 better than Mistral Small 3?
Mistral Large 3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.1 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 6.5× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Mistral Large 3's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Mistral Large 3 or Mistral Small 3?
Mistral Small 3 is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.08 per million output tokens; Mistral Large 3 lists at $0.25 and $0.75.
Is Mistral Large 3 or Mistral Small 3 better for coding?
Mistral Small 3 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 36.5 versus 34.4 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Mistral Large 3 does, with 262K tokens against 33K.
How many benchmarks do Mistral Large 3 and Mistral Small 3 share?
17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Mistral Large 3 has 24 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Small 3 has 24.